Field kitchens have been employed by the armed forces for many years. Since prior to World War II, the basic burner for field kitchens has been a gasoline burner known as the M2 burner. A highly efficient blue flame is produced generally with premixes of vaporized gasoline and aspirated air. For a number of reasons, including availability of fuel, greater safety, and versatility, there has been a need for a burner which will operate on whatever liquid fuel is available and which can be started at ambient temperatures as low as -20.degree. F. Moreover, the burner should be capable of producing a quality blue flame with a minumum of noxious emissions irrespective of the fuel being used.
A true multi-fuel field burner should be capable of utilizing any one of several fuels, including gasoline, kerosene, ethanol, methanol, and diesel. The requirement of starting the burner at an ambient temperature as low as the -20.degree. F. noted above poses no problem with gasoline, which has a flash point far below that figure. However, the other fuels mentioned have flash points considerably above that figure, and diesel fuel in particular is rated at 70.degree. C. Thus, of all the conventional fuels having flash points on the positive temperature scale, diesel fuel presents the toughest cold-starting problem. Diesel fuel also has the highest final boiling point, at about 340.degree. C., which makes it the most difficult of those fuels to vaporize for use in a premix fuel/air burner, as well as the most difficult fuel with which clean combustion can be achieved.
The advantages of available electric power self-contained at a portable field burner are obvious. Among the components which can be operated conveniently electrically are a combustion blower, a fuel pump, a cooling blower, an ignition control system, and an ultrasonic atomizer for premixing fuel and air prior to combustion in order that it will burn cleanly as a blue-flame burner without coking. The advantages are even greater when that power is derived from a thermoelectric converter combined with and energized by the field burner.
There have been some efforts made to utilize diesel fuel in the production of a clear blue flame for purposes other than field burners and some favorable results have been obtained in such areas as domestic hot-water heating. Also, of course, thermoelectric converters have been developed which are capable of generating practical quantities of electric power. The successful combination of a thermoelectric converter with a clean blue-flame diesel fuel burner in which the thermoelectric converter fills the electrical power requirements of the burner has not been developed, however.